Down on Me by J. Kenner Series: Man of the Month #1
Series Rating:
Published by Martini & Olive on January 16th 2018
Pages: 250
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
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Tight muscles. Vibrant Ink.Meet Mr. January. Winter’s never looked so hot…
Certified bachelor Reece Walker wants two things — to save the local bar he manages and to get Jenna Montgomery into his bed.
He has a few ideas for the bar. But Jenna... well, he’s going to have to rely on cold showers, because she’s been his best friend for years, and that’s a line he just can’t cross.
Until one wild kiss on a dark night changes everything. Now Reece is certain Jenna’s meant to be his.
And with long nights in bed, sensual caresses, and deep, lingering kisses, he sets out to thoroughly convince her that friends can be lovers, too.
When I saw the cover of this book, I knew I had to read it. I mean, really. Look at that cover. Admire it.
Anyway – Once I got past the cover, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The description intrigued me, and friends-to-lovers is one of my favorite tropes, so I had high hopes. But I’ve read a few things by J. Kenner before and not loved them, so my hopes were tempered a bit.
This one fell in the middle for me. Jenna and Reece, together with the other third of their trifecta, Brent, have been best friends for most of their lives. But after a night involving too much alcohol (of course) a lot of vomit, and a lot of hair-holding, Reece and Jenna realize their feelings for each other have moved beyond friendship and right into full-on lust. Then they spend the next eight months completely ignoring their new feelings because the morning after that night, Jenna moved to LA. But now she’s back, and Reece isn’t sure he can avoid his feelings any longer.
Jenna has spent the last eight months feeling the same way, and also trying her best to ignore it. And, frankly, they’re both terrible at escaping their feelings because within just a few days of Jenna being back in Austin, she and Reece are hooking up, letting all of their friends know that they’re together and all but living together. There just wasn’t a lot of tension in this book. J Kenner tried to inject some with Reece’s whole aversion-to-marriage, but it just didn’t work. How many romances have we read where the man (and it’s usually the man) thinks marriage will ruin his whole life and he’s just “not the commitment type”? We all know how it will turn out; we all know that this is the one woman on Earth who could change his mind, and there’s just no conflict with it. Jenna wants to get married (because of course she does) and this is really the only source of drama between them. And even though it’s early in the relationship, the issue is eventually forced to the forefront.
And even that resolves itself without a lot of fuss. Yes, they have a fight over it and break up, but they also get back together pretty easily and quickly. This book could have just as easily been a novella, and it wouldn’t have lost anything.
The sex is hot; everything I’ve read from J Kenner in the past led me to expect it to be, but the rest of the book just fell flat for me. I do think the concept of the calendar will be enough to at least keep me coming back for some of this. I thought that they were going to be released each month to go along with the concept, but apparently they’re coming out every two weeks. I don’t know if I’ll keep up with them at quite that rate, but I’ll at least read the next few.
